Scotland passes the Hate Crime Bill

Thanks Miss Barbary.

I mentioned the few Labour MSPs who had voted against (Jenny Mara, Johann Lamont etc) and he was aware that they are standing down in May so hence their ability to speak up.

I just asked my Labour voting DS (my fault I used to be supporter also!) if he realised that cross-dressers are protected in the Hate Crime Bill but not women. He had no idea - told me I must be wrong - googled it and apologised : result.

Pigeon, that's the whole thing. Every word.

I'm currently formulating my response. The 'holes' you mention will definitely be part of my reply.

I read the Engender briefing, or one of them. This seems to be their conclusion:

^^We consider that it would not only be ineffectual to develop a statutory aggravation for gender hostility but actively
harmful. This is for two reasons:
 Undermining public bodies’ understanding of the nature of gender-based violence, and its causal story of women’s inequality, risks the failure of Equally Safe; and
 An ineffectual hate crime is likely to institutionally entrench and systematise indifference to misogyny and its profound impact on women and girls.^^

It doesn’t make sense.

I read point 1 as them wanting to own the theory and language underpinning the law on women. Pure careerism: all they’ve got is policy language (they don’t actually ^do^ anything for women), that’s what they make their careers on, so their fight is to own chunks of language.

Point 2 (if the law isn’t implemented well, it could backfire) would apply to any of the protected characteristics, so it is a weird argument to apply it to sex - either the law is valuable and police and prosecutors need to be trained to use it, including about the PC of sex; or the law is pointless for everybody. It is a counsel of despair to say that it would be especially useless for women, or to imply that police can be trained to use all the rest of the law but there is no hope when it comes to women. And then of course they are also hanging out for their own very special recommended law about misogyny so they can say “we thought of it, that was us” - and they seem to have no worries about training the justice system to use that one. Because it will be based on their own theoretical work, so all problems magic away. Careerism again.

They could have recommended adding sex as a protected characteristic to get something on the statutes while they continue working for their own law. But if it isn’t their brainchild, they would rather have nothing at all. How embarrassing for them and the Scots government.

There’s 20 minutes I’ll never get back, but for my own sanity I had to understand how the utterly embarrassing omission of sex happened. So, some protected characteristics are more protected than others - and it was a gender studies organisation who gave the policy camouflage for the exclusion of sex.

TheShadowyFeminist - was that the complete response from your SNP MSP?

If it is, surely they missed something? They said "Emma Rich from the feminist advocacy organisation Engender outlined 4 broad risks of adding sex to the Bill: " but those concerns are not listed anywhere in the email. Where can we read the concerns?

To quote the communication from the MSP - clear hole between paragraph one and two:

"Regardingtakeholders opposed to the introduction of ‘sex’ in the Bill have warned of some potential harms and unintended consequences flowing from its inclusion.  In her evidence to the Justice Committee, Emma Rich from the feminist advocacy organisation Engender outlined 4 broad risks of adding sex to the Bill:

Stakeholders opposed to the introduction of ‘sex’ in the Bill have warned of some potential harms and unintended consequences flowing from its inclusion. Engender, Scottish Women’s Aid, Rape Crisis Scotland and Zero Tolerance have all warned of potential harms and unintended consequences flowing from the inclusion of sex within the hate crime legislative framework. This is a complex area that has garnered much attention throughout the Justice Committee’s scrutiny of the Bill.... "

From the Times article
Speaking in the final debate on the bill, he said: “To those who think they may accidentally somehow fall foul of the law . . . because they believe sex is immutable, or they believe an adult man cannot become a female or they campaign for the rights of Palestinians . . . or those that proselytise that same-sex relationships are sinful, none of these people would fall foul of the stirring up of hatred offence for solely stating their belief — even if they did so in a robust manner.

“Why? Because solely stating any belief, which I accept may be offensive to some, is not breaching the criminal threshold.”

Great - I can put forward my views on trans, strict religious beliefs - and not be criminalised - so what was teh point of this.

We’re all girls together, until we’re not.

This is very concerning.

However I am heartened that there does appear to be a route to challenging it. I didn't realise this but it looks as though the courts have much, much stronger powers over Scottish legislation than over UK legislation. Unlike primary legislation (Acts) of the UK Parliament, it appears there is a much wider set of grounds to JR an Act of the Scottish Parliament.

I know someone who wrote to Wightman.

He said he wouldn't vote for it if the Tomkins amendment wasn't added.

This is the full vote. 11 MSPs including Wightman, didn't vote. I haven't tried to work out who the other 10 are.

Excellent question on Twitter, I just wish someone would have the balls to come out and answer it plainly.

What happens if your work requires observation of someone's sex - like in healthcare?

If a trans woman gets testicular cancer, is the cancer transphobic?

Interestingly Wightman must have voted along with his (former) group.

I've been explaining this bill to my 12 year old daughter. I don't really have anything else to say.

How do you explain that we live somewhere where the government (rightly) wants to eradicate hate, give extra protection to protected characteristics but they have chosen not to include women and to broaden trans to include cross dressing. And that women who are unhappy about this are already being told they will have their words reported as hate speech.

I'm on Giggle and for IWD someone asked when did you first realise you were a feminist, what happened to make you realise women were discriminated against. I think this might be her moment.

www.holyrood.com/editors-column/view,defining-hate
Great article

Does anyone have a link to voting record?

I don't think women should be added to the bill, the entire thing needs to be torn up, burned and buried so it can be dug up and catapulted directly into the sun

Totally in agreement with this. I think it's very telling they won't add women but that doesn't change the fact it's dreadful legislation.

I don't think women should be added to the bill, the entire thing needs to be torn up, burned and buried so it can be dug up and catapulted directly into the sun

This. It’s the most ill conceived and poorly executed piece of legislation. I’m not sure the SNP ever had a plot to start with, but they’ve definitely lost it now.

Apparently the ScotGovs pet charities told them that if sex was included men would use it against women

Presumably it would be "used against women" if a specific woman's behaviour was sufficiently egregious to merit it. Is there a problem with that concept? It might not happen very often but women's behaviour should not be excluded.

“one of the most pernicious and dangerous pieces of legislation ever produced by any government in modern times in any part of the United Kingdom”.

www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/politics/scottish-politics/2966266/jim-sillars-criticises-badly-flawed-hate-crime-bill-following-holyrood-vote/